Camus And Nihilism

Throughout the novel “The Stranger”, Albert Camus uses Meursault to illustrate nihilism and absurdism, ideas that his society conspicuously opposes. Nihilism embraces life as meaningless while absurdism acknowledges the death of hope. Camus introduces the theory of acceptance without resignation, which in his opinion, allows one to reach closest to freedom; he believes that without higher powers, one can only be truly free if one accepts absurdism. Meursault, highlighting insincerity, forces meaning upon chaos with hope. He denies faith, overwhelms hope, and gets furious and offended that anyone would go as far as to believe that people can change and save him. His differences in moral and ethical implications (nihilism and absurdism) thus

For instance, the first line of the book states that “Maman died today” (3). Camus delineates that Meursault lives unattached to his mother, and his indifferent attitude toward his mother’s death portrays his thought based on one of Camus’s absurdist ideas of meaningless of human life; Meursault encounters an issue with moral apathy, highlighting his opposition to the will of the majority by isolating himself from society. Even when he visits his mom’s funeral, he denies seeing her body, though he finds it interesting to ponder upon “the effects of heat and humidity on the rate of body decay” (6). This nihilistic attitude toward his society later brings in a conflict. “Do you want my life to be meaningless?” (69) the examining magistrate bellows Meursault's unwavering indifference and rationalism when he denies accepting his faith in God. To the nihilist, hope is just another way to avoid the belief in meaninglessness. Analogous to Camus’ emphasis that avoiding the belief of higher powers allows one to live one’s life to the fullest, Meursault refuses religion, thus emphasizing his absolute acceptance of nihilism. Subsequently, the prosecutor intensely enunciates Meursault’s “emptiness of...heart…[that threatens] to swallow up society” (101), elucidating Meursault as a threat to social